


Carnations

by PlatonicRabbit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Flowers, Gabriel Being an Idiot, Hair Washing, Implied Sexual Content, Language of Flowers, M/M, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, moping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlatonicRabbit/pseuds/PlatonicRabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a being created to be the Messenger of God, Gabriel was crap at human communication sometimes. Most of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnations

**Author's Note:**

> This is maybe a little cracky just because Gabriel wouldn't stop being an absolute moron. I apologize if so.
> 
> I used a website for the flower language, the link if you want it is here, ever flower I referenced is on this list: http://www.victorianbazaar.com/meanings.html

**If you're not reading this on AO3 it has been stolen.**

Dating an Archangel of the Lord definitely has its perks. The free moving apartment with fully stocked fridges and pantries is one. The Impala’s mysterious ability to run endlessly without refueling is another. 

Then there are the drawbacks. Like how suddenly every person to even think about Sam in an "inappropriate way" according to Gabriel suddenly becomes stricken with genital herpes (that had been the cause of their first, and last so far, real fight) and the way the Winchesters never really get to have guaranteed alone time anymore, with Gabriel always just a finger snap away and seemingly mystified by the concept of calling ahead.

Then there were the just plain weird occurrences. Like that time Sam had woken up with feathers in places feathers should not be and Gabriel had refused to tell him why.

Or like Gabriel’s new rule effectively banning Sam from touching his own hair.

 

It began about a month into the relationship, before Dean loosened up enough around the Archangel to allow them to stay in Gabriel’s magic apartment during hunts. Sam had been scrubbing the shampoo into his scalp in the motel bathroom sink because the shower water had been both freezing cold and a worrying shade of brown; when suddenly the hunter found himself lying in a bathtub large enough to stretch out in, even for a moose, his own hands replaced on his head by much smaller, gentler ones that had lulled Sam to sleep while he lay in the tub. 

He had drifted briefly back into consciousness, hours later, in a huge four poster bed that had certainly not been in the motel room when the Winchesters had checked in. Gabriel was still combing out Sam’s by now silken hair, with an actual comb. Sam, who’d been giving his hair nothing more than a quick run through with his fingers since before the Apocalypse, had made a happy noise and burrowed further into his Archangel’s warm chest, enjoying the rumbling beneath his ear as Gabriel chuckled.

When Sam had woken the next morning Gabriel had taken thorough advantage of the relative privacy of a curtained bed and his own ability to soundproof a space.

 

It didn't stop there. From that day on, every time Sam so much as thinks about washing or combing out his hair Gabriel appears and does it for him. Often Sam walks away from these incidents smelling alarmingly perfumed. 

The first time Sam folds himself gingerly into the passenger seat of the Impala smelling like poppies, Dean’s nose wrinkled, but he said nothing. 

The next day, it was lavender, and Dean wasn't able to resist sniffing obnoxiously and giving Sam a pointed glare.

A week later Gabriel leaves his human smelling like a rose bush and Sam isn't allowed in the Impala at all.

Shortly after that, Gabriel begins... playing with Sam’s hair. At first it's just a single, small braid on one side, and Gabriel smiles and jokes about Sam being his young Padawan. Sam dismisses the incident as his angel playing one of his jokes. But a week later Sam waking up with his hair done an intricate style that must have taken Gabriel hours, if Sam was correct in his suspicion that the Archangel was doing it all by hand. Sam swears his hair was never quite this long before, too, but he likes having long hair, so he shrugs off the miraculous follicle enhancement.

Then one day Gabriel weaves forget-me-nots and clovers into the braids and Sam can’t take it anymore.

‘What the hell, Gabe?’ he snaps, gesturing to the flowers the angel had seen fit to add to his hair.

Gabriel’s face is suddenly strangely still.

Sam, oblivious to his angel’s reaction, keeps going.

‘I’m not a baby; I can look after my own hair, and I can’t exactly interrogate witnesses and go hunting things with stronger-than-human noses if you leave so much flower juice on me I could be mistaken for a greenhouse.’

When Sam looks up, Gabriel is gone. He runs a shaky hand through his hair to discover the forget-me-nots gone, along with the traces of the lily-of-the-valley scented conditioner Gabriel had massaged into his scalp earlier that evening.

Castiel won’t speak to Sam the next time he visits Dean. Instead, he hands him a potted cyclamen with a grave expression. The plant is half dead and sitting in a bed of dry, black leaves that crumble away when Sam touches them. Taped to the pot is a bottle of daffodil scented hair product.

Sam’s brow furrows. There’s something going on here, but he’ll be damned if he knows what it is. Of course Gabriel has to be a cryptic, melodramatic _idiot_ rather than just saying what's on his mind like a normal person. Normal angel. Whatever.

 

Sam spends the next few days on his laptop researching. First he tries plants associated with angels and finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, a description of the Angel’s Trumpet flower. Gabriel had told Sam the names of every flower he’d used in the wide variety of shampoos and conditioners he’d massaged into Sam’s scalp, and that wasn't one of them. Sam dismisses that line of research as useless.

Searches for plants associated with Gabriel bring up nothing more than a vague reference to the story of the birth of Jesus and the shepherd’s gifts; and several more Angel's Trumpet pages.

Increasingly confused, Sam next tries plants associated with Tricksters. He finds an interesting article on the use of mint in offerings, and a how-to guide for selecting appropriate trees and carving wooden stakes from them to kill pagans with (Sam isn't sure whether the recent surge of at least semi-accurate lore online was due to Chuck’s books or if some actual hunters had finally discovered the internet, but it was proving very useful so far). The page does look helpful, so Sam bookmarks it for later and moves on.

Searches for Loki, specifically, return several versions of Gabriel’s little tiff with Baldr and his mother however many centuries ago; and a list of tree barks that could be used in rituals invoking him. Neither is what Sam is looking for, but the second, at least, gives him an idea.

Sam is finally stumped. He sits, staring at the by-now somewhat sad looking cyclamen that Gabriel apparently hadn't been able to give Sam in person, and it finally dawned on the hunter that he was looking in the wrong places; that the starting point was the plants themselves, not Gabriel.

It only takes Sam five minutes after that to realize what Gabriel had been trying to say. The Cyclamen (resignation and goodbye) and dead leaves (sadness) alone were enough to worry Sam he’d never see his archangel again. The daffodils in the shampoo Gabriel had told Castiel to pass along to Sam were just as worrisome (unrequited love? Really, Gabriel? As if Sam would let someone he didn't love eat maple syrup out of his belly button). 

Just to check, Sam looks up every one of the flowers he can remember Gabriel mentioning to him. There are dozens, so he's sure he’s missed a few, but the theme is clear. Love. Adoration. Devotion.

So. The archangel had been telling Sam he loved him. With flowers. Like a normal person.

Sam wonders, not for the first time, when he's going to stop being bitter every time Gabriel fails to act like he has some sanity left.

What the hell had Gabriel been thinking? He has to be aware that most modern humans don’t understand flower language off the top of their heads or even know what it is. Sam had taken hours of research and mulling over to decode the message, and, as a hunter, Sam happened to have a somewhat workable knowledge of meanings associated with plants. For an omniscient celestial being created to be the Messenger of God, Gabriel was crap at communication sometimes.

Sam mutters something unrepeatable under his breath about melodramatic, moronic angels and set to work on his "apology".

 

Gabriel refuses to answer Sam when he tries summoning him, and he ignores the younger Winchester's prayers. Dean refuses to be a go-between, telling Sam that he and his boyfriend could act like adults and just talk to each other.

 _That’s what I’m trying to do_ , Sam doesn’t bother retorting out loud, Dean already having disengaged from the conversation.

Castiel point blank refuses to help, saying something about family loyalty that sounds suspiciously like he might have learned it on one of Dean’s two-star daytime TV soapies, or worse, from Dean himself. The Winchesters were going to have to have a serious talk about the media Castiel was allowed to consume and how it skewed his rather limited knowledge of human cultural practices.  
But that can wait.

 

It isn't too hard to pay off a pair of poor college kids in southern Georgia to perform the ritual; though they seem very nervous Sam is tricking them into doing something “satanic” or illegal. One of them asks if Sam was making a new hallucinogenic and whether she can buy some.

One of the girls chickens out, deciding that Sam is probably a serial killer and she doesn't want anything to do with this. Amazingly, her friend seems to accept Sam’s explanation for the task; which is both one of the craziest-sounding lies he has ever told and remarkably close to the truth; that Sam worships a particular Pagan God and that his God is displeased with him to the extent that Sam is afraid to make the offering of appeasement in person. It's only really a lie because Sam isn't afraid of anything here; Gabriel won't appear and smite him under any circumstances. He just won't appear at all.

Sam follows the girl out into the park, making sure she doesn’t see him. The markings on Sam’s ribs should be enough to keep Gabriel from noticing his presence and ignoring the offering, but if the girl blabs before Gabriel accepts the gift it won't matter.

Hiding behind a thick oak tree, Sam cringes every time the young student mispronounces a word of the incantation. He is seriously worrying he was going to have to step in and stop her from summoning the wrong God by mistake when a familiar voice cuts in.

‘Alright, alright, kid; I’m here, behold my glory and all that fancy crap, now stop butchering my ritual before you hurt yourself.’

Gabriel sounds like the poorly-spoken summoning had discomforted him as much as it had Sam. 

The girl screams. Sam rolls his eyes from behind the tree. Of course he hadn't been lucky enough to find one who wouldn't freak out and potentially cause offense to the deity she'd summoned. The girl was damn lucky Gabriel was more Archangel these days than Pagan. 

He can hear Gabriel’s footsteps crunching on the dry grass. Sam wanted to lean around the tree, see Gabriel’s face, but he can't risk the angel seeing him here yet. He strains his ears, trying to pick up on the conversation.

The girl was handing Gabriel Sam’s first offering; a purple hyacinth and a selection of Gabriel’s favourite candy bars, the ones he’d almost always had handy. 

Sam couldn't here the actual words Gabriel said in response, but the tone sounds bewildered. He grins. It sounds like his Archangel had accepted the gifts at least. A few more rounds of this and he might be willing to pull his bird-brained head out of his ass and actually speak with Sam himself.

Sam listens, as well as he is able, to the discussion on boons and offerings that Gabriel is trying to get through and the girl is trying to get out of. He hears an exasperated sigh and a snap; and then the sound of wings flapping.

He emerges to see the girl standing still in the middle of her circle looking like she doesn’t know up from down anymore. There is a small pile of gold coins at her feet. Apparently Gabriel had gotten sick of waiting for her to ask for a boon from him and chosen one for her.

Well, she is a college student who had just summoned and spoken to a Pagan deity. A little confusion is to be expected.

Sam leaves, looking back over his shoulder at the girl once. He wonders whether to ask her what Gabriel had said, but the conversation had been brief and Sam had gotten the gist of most of it; she probably won't be able to tell him anything, especially in that state. It's probably best that Sam clears out before the Archangel comes looking for him. The last thing Sam needs is for Gabriel to decide this stunt overstepped a boundary.

 

It's five days later that Sam gets a chance to repeat his summoning-by-proxy. The Winchesters have just finished a witch hunt and Sam wants nothing more after scrubbing all the disgusting witch goo off his body than to collapse like Dean had, but he has things to do, rituals to perform, archangels to appease.

A frat boy in the first bar Sam visits agreed to perform the ritual for twenty bucks and the promise that the fumes from the summoning herbs will get him really high. Sam rolls his eyes behind the kid’s back.

The guy brings three of his friends along to the ritual and the group makes so much noise Sam doesn’t even have to try to hide his footfalls. Luckily, the frat boys have decided a lot of privacy and cover is necessary for activities involving ritualistic chanting, blood, occult symbols and unidentified plant material. Sam finds a vantage point easily.

Gabriel seems genuinely annoyed when he turns up, as the first thing he does was take away the frat boy’s voices and begin lecturing them on pronunciation; which Sam had been doing silently since they started. This lot somehow make the girl from last week look like a poet. 

After gaping like a fish noiselessly for a few seconds the first frat boy thrusts the objects he had been holding at Gabriel and turns to run. A snap of fingers as his friends turn to flee with him is the only herald of the sudden return of their voices, mid scream and terrified. Sam has to work to suppress his snort. Gabriel turns, slowly, until he's facing Sam, but the Trickster is so caught up in staring at the plants in his hands he doesn’t notice the hunter. Gabriel is holding the branch of Jerusalem Oak so tightly his knuckles are whitening; an impressive feat for an angel; especially considering the branch is in one piece. Sam wonders why Gabriel was bothering with using his grace to keep the plant whole. 

Gabriel twirls the Star of Bethlehem in the fingers of his other hand. Closing his eyes, the Archangel lifts it, pressing the flower against his mouth briefly and vanishing with a soft _pop_ of displaced air. Sam lets out a breath. He hopes Gabriel had gotten the message, but it's always hard to tell with the block headed angel.

When Sam returns to the motel there is a wreath made from woven heartsease and primroses lying on his pillow. He smiles, a weight lifting from his heart as he drifts off to sleep, the wreath on top of the blankets and still in reach.

 

The next day Sam walks to the local florist under the pretense of buying coffee for Dean. It takes him longer than he had hoped to convince the store person to put together a custom selection for him, and Dean is going to be pissed when he got back late; they were supposed to be hightailing it out of town. Sam’s spirits are soaring regardless as he walks down the street, a small bouquet of petunias and pink roses hidden under his coat.

Dean is waiting in the Impala when Sam gets back, engine rumbling passive-aggressively. Sam opens the trunk and pulls a book out, more so that he has a chance to sneak the flowers in there without Dean noticing than for the sake of the tome itself. He'll just have to set the flowers out in the bunker instead of here. That's probably a better plan anyway.

 

Sam dawdles outside when they arrive home, watching Dean wanders off towards his room, presumably to pray to Castiel and spend time with his angel without Sam around. Things have been awkward between Sam and Castiel since Gabriel left, so Sam doesn't exactly mind; and besides, he has plans of his own.

Sam takes the somewhat wilted bouquet out of the trunk and carries it to the front door. He sits it down outside along with a hastily written note saying "Sorry if they’re in poor condition. Had to leave them in the Impala for a day". Even if Gabriel could guess that on his own, Sam isn't taking chances with his dumbass angel anymore.

Only twenty minutes later there’s a knock on the door. Sam closes his research books, and, after a quick glance in the direction of Dean’s room to make sure he isn't coming to investigate, opens the door. Gabriel has a single aster flower cupped in his hands. Sam resists the urge to throw himself at the Archangel, not quite sure of his reception yet. They still need to talk this over. Instead, Sam smiles and produces a tiny cactus from behind his back.  
Gabriel would turn Sam into a cactus if he ever told anyone, but his eyes look suspiciously sparkly when he takes the tiny plant. 

With a snap of the angel’s fingers they're on Sam’s bed. The room is filled with flowers that were not here when Sam dropped his duffel in here earlier. Gabriel is such a sap. Sam wonders whether he’ll need to invest in a beehive, or a personal gardener.  
Forget-me-nots are prominent, and Gabriel immediately picks a few and starts threading them into Sam’s hair the way he had the night they’d fought. Sam inclines his head to give the angel easier access to the long strands, and soon enough the hunter is using Gabriel’s chest as a pillow and struggling to keep his eyes open under the sensation of graceful fingers combing out the knots in his hair.

 

When Sam wakes up eight hours later his hair is so laden with flowers he can feel the increase in weight, and there's something wet on his stomach. He looks down to see Gabriel painting flowers all over Sam’s body. Sam wonders how he'd managed to sleep through most of that. Well, Gabriel certainly wasn't wasting time reminding Sam just how weird it can be to share a bed with a Trickster god.

At least they weren't tattoos. 

They did look very pretty.

The Archangel glances up from his work as he put the final touches on an elaborate dahlia. Further up Sam’s chest are honeysuckles and irises, the paint dry enough for Sam to touch. He does so, reverently, running a finger along the elaborate petals. Gabriel smiles softly at the awe in Sam’s expression. He starts on something else, further down, in the space between Sam’s belly button and the waistband of his jeans, which Gabriel hadn't removed as the hunter slept for once. It takes Sam a while to figure out what Gabriel is painting now, but as soon as he recognizes the dill he takes his angel up on the suggestion, enthusiastically.

When they are both worn out and sated, Sam rolls onto his side to look at Gabriel.

‘You know, I didn’t ever want to break up with you.’

The angel groans. 

‘You want to do this now?’

‘Yes. While we’re both in a good mood and before we leave it too long. We can’t just not talk about this, Gabriel.’

For an old-as-creation Archangel, Gabriel sure can do an impressive imitation of a sulking toddler. 

Sam decides to just talk; assume the moron of a celestial being was listening, and wait for him to stumble into a mature adult mood, which happens every month or so.

‘You realize most humans don’t know flower language, especially not off the top of their heads. Most humans don’t even know it exists.’

‘Dumb humans.’ Gabriel mutters, and Sam swats the back of his head. 

‘Gabe, I had no idea the flowers meant something. I thought you were just covering me in plants all the time and I was confused, okay? I didn’t mean to reject you.’

Gabriel is looking at Sam by now, at least, so the hunter draws a shaky breath and continues.

‘It wasn't really fair of you to just take off like that and announce by passing messages through Cas that you were dumping me, over a problem you never even communicated to me. You never said anything, just one day I wasn't allowed to look after my own hair anymore and I was walking around getting ribbed at by Dean because I smelt like flowers. I didn’t mind, Gabriel, I was just confused.’

Gabriel’s eyes leave Sam's and he stares fixedly at the ceiling.

‘Angels...’ he begins, then trails off.

The Archangel is blinking a little too often and his skin is a little too rigid, as if he's forgotten how to play human, but Sam remains silent because Gabriel will never spit whatever it is out if he's interrupted now.

‘We show affection by grooming each other; wings, specifically. But you don't have wings for me to take care of. So I decided to groom your hair for you instead and... got a little carried away. And then you got mad and I kinda... forgot you didn't know?’

Sam doesn’t know whether to cry, or hug Gabriel; or slap him. To think he’d once thought Dean was emotionally repressed. That absolute idiot.

Abruptly, Sam rolls over and straddles Gabriel’s hips. The angel’s eyes snap down to lock onto Sam’s, widening in shock.

‘This grooming would be a mutual thing, right?’ Sam asks, shifting to get more comfortable on top of his lover. 

Gabriel nods, eyes not breaking contact with the hunter’s even to blink. He’d started to withdraw into cold, angelic, unyielding stoniness the second Sam had moved. 

‘Well?’ Sam prompts, gesturing towards Gabriel’s shoulders.

The archangel hesitates.

‘This would work better with me face down,’ he says.

Sam raises himself up slightly to allow Gabriel to turn over, and once the angel is settled, digs his fingers into his shoulder blades, around the edge of where Sam thinks the angel's wings would be. Gabriel whimpers below him, and slowly, three extra set of limbs glimmer into existence on his back. Sam didn’t quite squeal in delight but if he’d been twenty years younger he may well have. The primary feathers were each as long as Sam’s forearm, and the clear, bright gold of champagne. They almost gleamed where the light touched them.

This was going to take a while.

Sam swallows, and brushes the back of one hand along the body of Gabriel’s lower right wing. It twitches, and the angel beneath him makes a tiny sound that Sam would almost swear was a whimper. Gabriel is allowing himself to be movable, but is still as tense as a rock. Sam strokes the soft feathers one more time, then buries his hand in the wing, secretly delighting at how soft it is. It’s like nothing Sam’s ever touched before. 

This seems to be a new experience for Gabriel, too, or at least something he hasn't had done in a while. The archangel was squirming, all six wings twitching despite his efforts to hold them still. Sam grins at the effect he's already caused and sets to work properly grooming his angel, combing and straightening the long feathers one by one. There’s a soft snap from somewhere underneath Sam and a bottle of expensive looking lavender scented oil is suddenly lying on Sam's knee. Sam takes the hint and opens it, making sure his hands are thoroughly coated before returning his attentions to Gabriel’s wings.

It takes over an hour just to clean the backs of the wings, but Sam is having the time of his life. Gabriel goes still after a while, making soft happy noises every so often, and he seems to be asleep, or so blissed he may as well be. He doesn’t respond at all when Sam tells him to roll over so he can start on the undersides, and the hunter had to roll him manually, which isn’t as difficult as it usually would have been. Gabriel is like a soft puddle of goo, and he simply flops wherever Sam moves him.

The undersides of his wings are just as bright gold as the backs, but with streaks of bright blue running through them like veins of precious stones in ore. Sam reaches out and runs a finger along one of the swirls of blue, tracing it from base to tip. The feathers shift under his touch.

The grooming goes faster this time. The undersides of Gabriel’s wings aren’t nearly as dirty; the feathers generally much straighter. It looks like Gabriel has made at least a cursory attempt at cleaning the undersides of his wings recently.

When he is finally done Sam collapses onto the bed. His arms are getting tired, and it's getting late.

Gabriel's wings wrap around them both like a blanket as they sleep.

 **If you're not reading this on AO3 it has been stolen.**

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I couldn’t actually find anything that stated a link between Tricksters and mint but it’s something that shows up a lot in the fanfiction, so call in an intra-fandom reference. If anyone does know where it came from, I would be more than happy for you to tell me, I'm really curious.


End file.
